Newark Earthworks Center's Blog: How Far Did Hohokam Reach? Researcher Thinks They Dominated Southwest for Centuries

Thursday, January 28, 2016

How Far Did Hohokam Reach? Researcher Thinks They Dominated Southwest for Centuries

The Salado built the dwellings preserved by Tonto National Monument,
but at least one researcher believes they were part of a regional civilization dominated by the Hohokam.
Image Courtesy of Payson Roundup.

December 29, 2015.

Pete Aleshire, of Payson Roundup, has written an informative article about Dr. Steven Shackley's recent analysis of the sources of Hohokam culture linked obsidian. The Hohokam culture, from AD 200 - AD 1400, was an influential civilization based mostly along the Gila and Salt Rivers
in present-day central and southern Arizona in the United States.

"The work gives added stature to the to Hohokam, whose importance has long been overshadowed by the much more durable and impressive ruins left by the Ancestral Puebloeans — previously referred to as the Anasazi. They built great cliff houses, with complexes of giant, round, half-buried, ceremonial kivas in places like Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde.

The Hohokam built mostly adobe and earthen cities along rivers and extensive irrigation systems they built along those rivers — especially the Salt, Verde and Gila rivers, which converge in the Valley. In addition to the massive irrigation works, the Hohokam built great, raised, platform mound housing for their elites and not entirely understood “ball courts,” reminiscent of the structures of the Mayans and Aztecs."

-Pete Aleshire, Payson Roundup.

To read the full article, click here.

For more information,

Visit: